Chapter 62
Tim sat outside of Dr. Hicks' office, waiting to be admitted. Today was going to be a full day and he wasn't quite looking forward to it. It was the first steps he had to take in order to implement his decision on how he was going to live his life. So it was necessary, but not really desired. At this point, he really wished he could just throw up his hands and give in to everything. However, he knew that wasn't possible and, in reality, he knew that he probably wouldn't want that later.
Meeting with Dr. Hicks probably wouldn't be the easiest part of his day, but it would be a part that he knew what to expect. He'd been getting therapy from Dr. Hicks for many years now and since he mostly knew what his problems were, he knew where he'd be pushed.
The door opened and Dr. Hicks smiled.
"Hello, Tim. Come on inside."
x.x.x.x.x.x.x
Jimmy brought up a form he needed to fill out for the last autopsy he'd done. As he scanned through the details, making sure he hadn't missed anything, his mind wandered a little bit. Tim wasn't back at work yet. He had often thought about the question he'd first voiced to Gibbs back when Tim had been forced to run away to Morocco in order to avoid getting arrested by the FBI.
Would Tim ever just give up?
Obviously, now, giving up would be more difficult. He wasn't on his own. He had a family, but the temptation had to be there at times. It wouldn't make sense if it wasn't. If he was in Tim's place, Jimmy wasn't sure if he would stick with it the way Tim was trying to do. Sometimes, Jimmy couldn't help wondering if Tim's decision to stay in the life he'd made actually made things worse. He didn't ever dare ask that question because he was quite certain that others would take in the wrong way. While he had learned to be tactful with his appointment as M.E., it hadn't changed how his mind worked at all. He was always curious about things. He wanted to know and that required asking questions. Lots of questions. Lots of awkward questions.
Some people didn't like that.
Well, really, most people didn't like that.
However, while he did want to know, he wasn't going to ask. No one would understand why he would ask that question.
The plain fact of the matter was that, if Tim gave up, Jimmy didn't see him giving up peacefully. This wouldn't be a case where he'd simply disappear. It was would be bad for everyone if Tim just gave up. But no one ever talked about it.
"Well, they don't talk about it to me," Jimmy amended aloud.
He knew that he was on the outside of everything that had happened to Tim. He had never really been part of it. He and Bree had a good friendship with Tim and Zahara, but that was all social. With few exceptions Tim didn't talk about the CIA part of his life with Jimmy.
Would it be worth asking Tim about it?
Probably not. At least, not right now when he was just safe again, his brother-in-law was still in the hospital and he hadn't yet felt like he could get back to work.
"Probably never," Jimmy said to himself.
A knock on the door brought his mind back to the present and he looked up to see Loren Eccles, his current assistant. He nodded and Loren opened the door.
"Dr. Palmer, do you have anything else for me to do today?"
Jimmy smiled. "Are you saying that you would like to leave, Mr. Eccles?"
"No! No! It's just that... well... I have an exam tomorrow."
Jimmy laughed. "That's fine, Loren. If you've finished everything I assigned you, go ahead and study for your test. Good luck."
"Thank you, Dr. Palmer! Thanks a lot!"
Loren hurried out and Jimmy leaned back in his chair. He wouldn't go back to being a medical student again. He liked his job now. It could be very demanding but he enjoyed what he did.
...even when there were forms to fill out. He sat up and refocused on his task.
x.x.x.x.x.x.x
Dr. Hicks was listening as Tim was talking, but everything in Tim's body language was saying that there was something else he wasn't yet saying, the real reason he was here. But everything that Tim was talking about thus far were real issues he needed to express so Dr. Hicks was letting him do that. It was just that he was making sure he was ready to interject.
"...but that's not really what I came here for," Tim said, finishing abruptly.
Dr. Hicks smiled. "I was just thinking that. What is it?"
"I... It's stupid that I'm like this that..."
"Tim, just tell me," Dr. Hicks said.
"Sometimes, I feel like I should just be committed to a mental institution permanently. Every little thing throws me into these problems."
"Tim, focus on why you wanted to talk to me."
"I can't keep on the way I have been. I need to change. I can't lose my family and my friends and I will if I keep doing what I've been doing. I just... I don't know how to get there."
Dr. Hicks was thrilled. For the last three years, Tim had been needing to take this step but had rejected it in favor of trying to get that control again. Nothing Dr. Hicks had done had managed to break through that need.
"Just by making that decision you're halfway there," he said.
Tim raised a skeptical eyebrow.
"I mean it. Your biggest impediment is your own perceptions. You felt like the only way to heal was to stop everyone and that's been your focus since your abduction. Until you were ready to let that go, you weren't going to succeed. You are putting it aside, letting yourself recover in a way you haven't in the past. And since it's what you want to do, you'll do it."
Tim looked down at the floor, still uncertain, still worrying. ...but ready, even if he probably didn't feel that way at the moment.
"I can't live Levi's life," Tim said softly. "He told me that I didn't have to be like him and I can't be. That's where I'm headed if I don't change. I need to be like Suhayl."
"What do you mean?"
Tim looked up at him. "Suhayl lives a life where he's always on call by whoever his employers are. I don't know and he hasn't ever told me. When he's called on, he leaves his family and goes to work and when he's done, he comes home to them and enjoys his time with them, knowing that every time he leaves, it could be the last time. He did it willingly, but still, that's the way I need to live. I hate it, but it's true."
He stood up and walked to the window, looking out at the world he couldn't control. Dr. Hicks didn't speak. This was important for Tim to say.
"I can't control whether or not someone wants to take over my life. I can't control how far they're willing to go to get to me. I want to, but I can't. So I have to try to live my life... until the next time. I wish I was obsolete, but I'm not. If there was some way I could guarantee it, I would take it in a heartbeat, but I can't. So...since I can't, I have to deal with it."
"Yes, you do," Dr. Hicks said. "And I will help you as much as I can. Everyone will."
"I know."
"Good. Then, are you ready to start that journey?"
Tim turned back to face him. He managed to smile slightly.
"Maybe."
"Remember that it won't be all at once. It'll take time and it's okay that it does. ...do you want to keep with your CIA training?"
"Yes," Tim said. "I still want to be ready when it happens again. Bob...helps in a different way."
"I'm sure his approach is different from mine," Dr. Hicks said. He didn't know Bob personally, but others had mentioned him at times.
"It is, but only because you don't threaten to punch me out and you don't yell at me like a drill instructor," Tim said, his smile widening.
Dr. Hicks chuckled. "I definitely couldn't punch you out and I've never been big on yelling."
"I don't think I could handle it all the time, but it helps."
"If it helps, I'm glad of it. Maybe you should think about telling your friends what you're doing. Make it less of a secret you're hiding and more of something different that you're doing."
"Maybe."
"Not required, just something to think about. Now, since I'm not Bob, how about, instead of yelling at you, I help you relax a little?"
Tim's smile didn't fade and he nodded. After he was lying down on the couch, Dr. Hicks started the process of helping Tim get rid of some of his stress. It wasn't a panacea, unfortunately, but it would give him some relief, even just temporarily, and Tim felt enough anxiety that relief was good, no matter how long he had it.
And what gave Dr. Hicks even more confidence in Tim's eventual success was that, even before he started the process, Tim was relaxing a little. He was still tense, but not to the same extent. The healing had begun.
x.x.x.x.x.x.x
Night had fallen over the desert and Suhayl stood out on the sand, looking at the sky, remembering the poem that Tim had recited once before. He had always enjoyed poetry. During his years of western schooling, he had made a point of reading poetry from as many different countries as possible. His father hadn't agreed with that use of his time, but since his grades had never suffered and he had always been successful, he hadn't complained.
"Baba?"
He turned his gaze from the skies to his daughter.
"Na'am?"
Samia spoke English, as he had suspected she would.
"What are you doing?"
"Enjoying the stars in the sky."
Samia looked up. She knew the constellations simply because, while the bedouin made use of modern technology in their constant traveling, knowing the old traditions of navigating by the stars was important. However, she had never been interested in them for any other reason.
"Why?"
"They are beautiful. They tie all of mankind together, saghīratī. No matter where one stands on this earth, the stars are there to see. Perhaps not the same stars. Perhaps not as many as we have here in the desert. But we all share the sky. And it is beautiful."
Samia stood beside him silently, listening as he spoke to her. He would not have many more opportunities to teach her the wisdom he had learned over his lifetime.
"Much of our world is focused on what is necessary for our survival, but do not forget to find beauty. We do not stay here in the desert simply because of traditions. It is because this is a beautiful world and being here gives us more of a chance to experience that." Suhayl looked away from the skies and met his daughter's fearless gaze. "Soon, you will have the choice to become educated in the western way. You will see that world and you will decide if you wish to live there or here. It will be a choice that you make. The western world is one of many experiences and choices and it may seem to be nothing more than pleasure after pleasure. That is not how one should live, but you will have that choice. I will not force you to return here, but I will hope that you will choose a life of meaning and not just one of pleasure."
"Here."
Suhayl kissed her forehead.
"I will hope that it will be here, but it will be your choice. It is possible to find a life of meaning in other places."
Samia nodded.
"Teach me, Baba."
How much longer would she ask for that? Suhayl would take it while he could. He sat down in the sand and Samia sat beside him.
"There is a man, Kahlil Gibran, who wrote many things. He would be called a philosopher, I think. I have read his books. He wrote a poem about time that contains truth within it."
"What truth?"
"'Of time you would make a stream upon whose bank you would sit and watch its flowing.
Yet the timeless in you is aware of life's timelessness,
And knows that yesterday is but today's memory and tomorrow is today's dream.
And that which sings and contemplates in you is still dwelling within the bounds of that first moment which scattered the stars into space.'"
"What does it mean, Baba?"
"Perhaps I do not know what is meant, but I see it as instructions. We must not forget our connection to the world that we live in. It is easy to keep that connection here in the desert, but it is harder when you leave it. It can be done, but you must remember that you are more than a being of time." He leaned over and touched her head and her heart. "You contain within you that which is eternal."
Samia listened. She may not fully understand, but she listened.
x.x.x.x.x.x.x
Tim left Dr. Hicks' office and headed for his next stop. He had made the rounds like this before, but this time, he was mostly just trying to make sure he knew where he stood. If he was going to make this effort, he needed to have a foundation to build this new outlook on.
It wouldn't fix everything, but it was a start.
